Weatherstrips, particularly pile weatherstrips incorporating an impermeable barrier film or fin within the pile material, have excellent weathering properties. While such weatherstrips are used in various places for various sealing purposes, they are particularly suitable for sealing or weatherstripping the small clearance openings between adjacent wood, aluminum or vinyl materials such as, for example, building materials. Such weatherstrips are particularly useful in door panels or window panels, or between the panels and the frames in which they are mounted, or between the door edge and an adjacent surface such as a floor.
Today, plastics and vinyl materials are increasingly being used as building materials such as, for example, window and door treatments and casings. Vinyl casings are often manufactured by extruding long, continuous lengths which can be cut to length for customized jobs, or cut at regular intervals to make windows and door casings of standard dimensions. Typically, the vinyl lengths are extruded to specifications, and have slots throughout their length ("T-slots" also referred to as "C-slots") into which weatherstrips, preferably pile weatherstrips, are inserted. The pile strip is often backed with a flexible plastic strip serving as the pile base. The configuration of the pile strip can be made to adapt to a slot of any shape. Therefore, for a T-slot, the pile strip is configured into a dimensionally matching T-shape. It is this T-shaped pile weatherstrip which must be inserted into the T-slot of a window or door casing.
Pile weatherstrip insertion has been accomplished in many ways. Pile strips have been pushed or pulled into the T-slot. The strips have also been forced into the T-slots by applying a thin-wheeled roller over the strip which is positioned over the slot. The slotted piece being extruded is then moved forward relative to the roller to drive the strip into the slot. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,103,547 and 4,528,736.
To secure the newly slotted strips in the T-slot, the strips are anchored into the slot by compressing sections of the lip of the T-slot against the base of the pile strip. This process is known as staking. A staking wheel is provided at a separate staking station farther downline. The staking wheel is positioned adjacent the slot rim to crimp or pin the T-slot edge into the pile strip. U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,195 shows a device which first inserts and later stakes pile weatherstrip into an aluminum extrusion.
Vinyl extruded window lengths are produced faster and more economically than aluminum counterparts. It would be convenient and economically desirable to insert pile weatherstrip into vinyl window lengths as part of the vinyl extrusion process. Such a process would eliminate the need for a secondary pile strip insertion process into the T-slots. However, practical problems persist.
If the pile strip is inserted on the extruding line without locking in, or staking the pile strip, it will shift within the T-slot during subsequent cutting, handling and shipping. Strips that are not staked risk "drawback" or "shrink-back" after cutting. This refers to the condition where pile weatherstrip no longer extends to provide complete coverage over the entire length of the extruded, slotted material, but "draws back" due to being stretched at the cutting stage due to weak or no staking.
To properly stake the weatherstrip into place, a staking station must be put in place downline from the insertion station. Setting up both an insertion station and a staking station on a vinyl extrusion line is difficult to achieve without adversely affecting the vinyl extrusion rate and product yield. A tool that can accomplish such insertion and staking on the extrusion line without interfering with vinyl extrusion rates would be highly advantageous.